


It Hits My Head and I Feel Numb

by dyingpoet



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Depression, Dissociation, Mental Illness, based off my experience with these conditions, if you don't personally relate im sorry i mean no offense, this is just straight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 15:01:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13250694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyingpoet/pseuds/dyingpoet
Summary: Connor doesn't understand what's happening to him





	It Hits My Head and I Feel Numb

**Author's Note:**

> title from Other side of paradise by Glass Animals, content based off of personal experience with mental illness

Connor didn't know when this started, not just this feeling, if it was even a feeling, but everything.

He was alone at home, his family had left after he got into an argument with Larry, and he remembered sitting down on his bed. He remembered feeling like he was being eaten alive from the inside out, that felt like so long ago even though he knew it wasn't over an hour. The intensity of the feeling didn't slowly fade from his body into nothing, no, it was as if suddenly it didn't exist anymore, like it and everything Conner had ever felt had never been real at all.

He knew he was at home but his room didn't look like his. Everything looked flat, when he looked at his hands they looked flat and distorted, when he got up to stumble into the bathroom his face looked flat and unfamiliar in the mirror. It was like looking at a piece of abstract art, if he squinted and titled his head he might be able to recognize the remnants of his face but for now it was just a mass of shape and color

Any slight creak from the house seemed like it might overload his senses, he nearly started crying when he knocked over a book from his night table, jumping while the sound rang in his ears over and over again, forcing him to lie down. His covers and pillow felt scratchy and unearthly under his hands, feeling disconnected from his body, and he couldn't sleep because he couldn't shut off, there was nothing to shut off, nothing to grasp onto.

Numbness overtook his brain and trying to think of anything past the last few hours, or the past few years even, seemed fake. Christmas last month seemed like it wasn't his own, like he had crept into someone else's brain and stolen their memories, his were mixed up and roughly strewn throughout his mind and he couldn't place when or if they ever happened.

If he could process any emotion right now it would be panic, he felt like he was watching himself decay while he stared at his ceiling in silence he simultaneously felt every cell crowd his body and hollow at the same time. Every emotion that attempted to claw its was to the surface of his mind was broken down and divided into small pieces of dust which floated out of his head and into the air around him. Every truth which had torn him apart in the past was disregarded and buried deep in his mind, on the other side of some makeshift wall which kept out all feeling and emotion from touching him.

And it wasn't scary, he thought like he should be scared but you can't be scared of something that doesn't even exist

It was sort of like being high, but also not like it all, he felt lighter like he did when he got stoned, but like he was floating above his body, disconnected from his brain on a different plane of consciousness. The feeling was more comforting than he would have liked, but it was like getting a break from everything which had drowned his thoughts in pain for so long.

He knew he must be breathing but he couldn't feel his lungs moving up and down, couldn't feel his heart beat or any familiar body function that he took for granted when he could feel. Was he ever able to feel? He couldn't tell anymore, tried to focus his receding brain into remembering but failed. He didn't care. 

Hurt had infested his body for years, eating at his brain until there was nothing left. He wasn't even there to view the carnage, he didn't know where he was. 

Suddenly he realized that he needed to blink, he never had to think about blinking but now his eyes were burning and the feeling was filling his muted senses.

He stared at the wall for what could have been a second or a lifetime, time had become distorted and unreal. When he heard someone open the door from downstairs the sound was strange and rough in his ears, someone was walking up the stairs now he was sure, but the sound felt far away.

Quickly he managed to shut his buzzing eyes when someone opened the door, letting out a sigh in a voice that felt familiar, like an old song where all you can remember is the beat or a lyric. He opened his eyes to slits and saw the face of what he knew was his mother, she was his mother but she somehow looked unfamiliar, robotic almost as she turned on her heel and left, cloaking his brain in a cloudy silence again.

After what his phone said was an hour the feeling of nothing started to fade. How can nothing fade? It can't really, he merely felt pain start to worm its way back into his mind, slowly felt his hands regain their usual solidity. His surroundings gradually started to seem real, colors stopped glaring at him and the feeling of breathing and blood pumping through his veins came back in a rush

Connor started dozing off just as he was able to recognize that he hadn't felt nothing, he had felt death, felt the void surround him, just as the darkness was surrounding him now as he shut his eyes and fell into a deep sleep. He honestly didn't care one way or another if he woke up.

**Author's Note:**

> So that was what dissociation felt like for me when I was at my worst point of depression. Sorry for projecting but it makes sense to me that Connor might have dissociated while struggling with mental illness, my own interpretation of the character! Leave kudos if you enjoyed!


End file.
